Joachim von Ostau

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Joachim von Ostau (born April 18, 1902 in Berlin ; † March 22, 1969 there ) was a German actor , director , theater director , author , manufacturer and party founder. Ostaus interest in art and politics was u. a. awakened by his family: his older sister, Ruth von Ostau (1899–1966), was a writer, his grandfather, Otto von Dewitz (1850–1926), was a Prussian member of parliament. The von Ostau family comes from the Prussian nobility with the parent company Ponnau (Königsberg district).

From cadet school to theater

Joachim von Ostau was born as the son of the cavalry master and manor owner Heinrich von Ostau and his wife Anna, née. von Dewitz was born in Berlin. His entire training was aimed at becoming an officer, but in the changed situation after the First World War these plans failed. After attending the cadet school and the secondary school, Ostau trained as a banker from 1921 and worked in several Berlin companies from 1922. In 1924 he switched to the stage. Via Recklinghausen, Darmstadt and Stettin he returned to Berlin, where he took over the management of the Residenztheater in 1929. In June 1929 Ostau married the actress Erna van Delden . From his father-in-law, the textile industrialist Dr. With financial support from Hendrik van Delden , he had the " New Theater am Zoo " modernized in the summer of 1929 and ran it as a private theater. Ostau was benevolently a. a. supported by Gerhart Hauptmann by visiting premieres. His ensemble included well-known actors such as Carl Ludwig Achaz , Ewald von Demandowsky , OE Hasse , Eugen Klöpfer and Alexander Moissi . The world economic crisis that followed soon after and fraud against business partners led to bankruptcy. Ostau switched to the Max Reinhardt Group, took over the “ Berlin Theater ” in the 1930/31 season , but his financial problems forced him to give up here too.

Ambivalent relationship to National Socialism

After his theater bankruptcies, Ostau worked for a few weeks in the spring of 1931 for the “National Socialist Volksbühne”. On June 1, 1931 he became a party member of the NSDAP in Gronau (Westphalia) and took over numerous offices in quick succession (head of the NSDAP local group, district leader of the NSDAP of the Ahaus district, Gau Propaganda leader II of the Gaus Westfalen-Nord). For the presidential election in March 1932, Joachim von Ostau, always full of admiration for the imperial family, stood up for the candidacy of Crown Prince Wilhelm . In the simmering dispute between “ Stahlhelm ” and the SA , Ostau published an open letter to Hitler on October 3, 1932 in the magazine “Fridericus”, which led to his exclusion from the party on October 27, 1932. Ostau increasingly identified with the groups of monarchist conservatives from which the National Socialist movement separated itself in the course of the seizure of power. At the beginning of the 1930s he also met Erwin Planck (* 1893, executed 1945) through his sister Ruth and thus got connections to the circle around General Kurt von Schleicher (* 1882, murdered in 1934).

"Motor" of the German-Dutch regional culture

In May 1931, Ostau became a manufacturer on the German-Dutch border with the help of his father-in-law. With his move to the booming industrial city of Gronau (Westphalia), his involvement in the cultural life of the border area began. Year after year, Ostau and the theater group of the local factory owners' club brought successful pieces to the stage in Berlin. He found a professional partner in the Dutch pianist and conductor Pieter Herfst , who also worked as an artist in Berlin. The municipal symphony orchestra, the local coffeehouse bands and the theater amateurs were brought together in 1935 in the complex institution of an operetta company, the " Enschedesch Opera en Operette Gezelschap ". The climax of this cultural cooperation was the world premiere of the operetta " Insel der Träume " (music: Hans-Martin Majewski ) in 1938 , for which Joachim von Ostau wrote the libretto. The reservations of the NSDAP district leadership against Ostau's person prevented further projects, and the Second World War ultimately destroyed the cross-border cooperation between Germans and Dutch. As the last cultural institution in the German-Dutch border region, Ostau founded the “Gronauer Kunstgemeinde” in 1946, from which the “Kulturring” of the city of Gronau emerged in 1949.

Factory building of the former "Westfälische Textilfaser-Gesellschaft mbH" (built in 1937); modernized condition (2004)

Establishment of the "Hanfwerke" (1937)

At the same time, Ostau positioned itself in the economic field, especially in the "creation of German raw materials" . As part of the self-sufficiency policy , the "Westfälische Textilfaser-Gesellschaft mbH" and "Hanfverwertung GmbH" were established in Gronau and presented to the public in November 1937. Ostau acquired hemp cultivation areas in Kösternitz (Pomerania). The closer links between these innovative industrial plants with IG Farbenindustrie AG and the Kaiser Wilhelm Society have not yet been investigated.

Party foundations after 1945

In the collapse of the National Socialist state, Ostau saw an opportunity for the belated implementation of his political ideals, some of which still came from the German Empire. In terms of content, however, this had little to do with the democratic new beginning of the Federal Republic of Germany. Especially in the years 1945-49 he worked as a party founder on the right-wing political spectrum. Together with Reinhold Wulle , he founded the German Reconstruction Party (DAP) in Gronau on October 31, 1945 , which merged with the German Conservative Party on March 22, 1946 to form the DKP-DRP . In 1947 the “National Unity Party of Germany” and the “Bund Deutsche Erneuerung” were launched, but ultimately not approved by the British military government. In 1949 he was a founding member of the "Association of Independent Germans". Ostau found a political home in the FDP in 1956 , but remained connected to the constantly re-emerging currents of the political right.

Return to Berlin

After the death of the family patriarch (1950), conflicts arose in the Gerrit van Delden & Co. company, which ultimately contributed to the failure of Ostau's marriage. As a partner in a real estate company, Ostau first moved to Mönchengladbach and entered into a second marriage. In 1956 he moved to Berlin, where he also died in 1969.

Free ticket for “Island of Dreams” (2nd performance, May 16, 1938), Ostau wrote the libretto

Stage works

literature

  • Hans Frederik (Ed.): The right-wing radicals. Munich undated [1970], DNB 451351495 , pp. 68f.
  • Genealogical handbook of the German nobility. Noble houses A. Volume XVI, Limburg 1981, pp. 401–407.
  • Oscar Goetz (Ed.): German Theater Service. Current feature section correspondence, Berlin. (Issue of November 8, 27 and 28, 1930)
  • Alfred Hagemann, Elmar Hoff (ed.): Island of dreams. Music in Gronau and Enschede (1895–2005). Essen 2006, pp. 176–197.
  • Herbert Jhering: Theater in action, reviews from three decades (1913-1933), Berlin 1986, pp. 392, 421, 465, 493f.
  • Walther Killy, Rudolf Vierhaus (ed.): German Biographical Encyclopedia. Volume 7, Munich 2000, p. 514.
  • P. Moussault (Ed.): Het geslacht van Delden [The Van Delden family]. Laren 1954, p. 91ff.
  • Gregor Müller: Ahaus 1933. Installation of the National Socialist System, Münster 2004, p. 49f.
  • Astrid von Pufendorf: The Plancks. A family between patriotism and resistance, Berlin 2006.
  • Robert Volz: Reich manual of the German society . The handbook of personalities in words and pictures. Volume 2: L-Z. Deutscher Wirtschaftsverlag, Berlin 1931, DNB 453960294 , p. 1367.
  • Friedrich Wiltfang: Swastika flags over Gronau / Epe. Gronau 1998, pp. 94-127.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Genealogical Handbook, p. 401.
  2. ^ Reichs Handbuch, p. 1367.
  3. ^ Berliner Börsen-Courier , September 2, 1929; Berliner Tagblatt, September 3, 1929.
  4. ^ Theater service, November 28, 1930.
  5. ^ Berliner Börsen-Courier, March 31, 1931.
  6. ↑ Müller, p. 50.
  7. ↑ Wiltfang, p. 96ff., Frederik, p. 69.
  8. ↑ Pufendorf, p. 172ff.
  9. ↑ Hagemann, p. 186ff.
  10. ↑ Hagemann, p. 191.
  11. ↑ Wiltfang, pp. 105f., 112; Hagemann, p. 186ff.
  12. ^ Gronauer Nachrichten, November 4, 1937.
  13. ↑ Wiltfang, p. 113ff., Federik, p. 69.
  14. ↑ Wiltfang, p. 127.
personal data
SURNAME Ostau, Joachim von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German actor, director, theater director, author, manufacturer and party founder
DATE OF BIRTH April 18, 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH March 22, 1969
Place of death Berlin